The Good Side of Bad Books

OK, enough of looking at book covers for a day or two. The Guardian's Stuart Evers has written a very, very funny article about "the good side of bad books." It's a hoot, and you should read it now.

But then you should come back here and tell us about the one (or two) novels that made you want to set yourself on fire, punch yourself in the face, or question why you learned to read in the first place.

I'll go first. After being hounded by my sci-fi-inclined friends for years, I read Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land. When done, I immediately went out and bought two hamsters and a cage so that something could rip that book apart and pee on it. If there was an editor within 50 miles of that thing, I'll eat my shorts. I'll eat yours too.

I'm not anti-science fiction. I don't read a whole bunch of it, but I don't have a problem with it per se. J.G. Ballard holds a special place on my bookshelves. But this book? Ugh. I wish I remembered more about why I hated it so deeply, but I do trust my memory of discomfort and loathing.

OK. I'm done. Your turn.

Penguin / Waterstone's Hardback Classics

Design by Coralie Bickford-Smith

Designer Bickford-Smith strikes again -- and brilliantly so. Last month we looked at some of her designs for the Penguin Gothic Horror Series; this month the excellent Penguin Blog features her designs for a series of hardcover classics, sold exclusively in the UK through Waterstone's.


The spines alone are gorgeous; check out Penguin's Flickr photostream to see the individual titles.

Generally speaking, what do you think of jacket-less hardcovers?

2666

Design (both hardcover & paperback) by Charlotte Strick

Arguably the publishing event of the year, Roberto Bolano's 2666 has been released as a single-volume 912-page hardcover and as a 3-volume paperback boxed set. I can't remember anything being released like this (simultaneous hardcover & multiple-volume paperback) before. Do you know of any?

The hardcover:


The paperbacks:


The hardcover and one of the paperbacks features a detail of Gustave Moreau's Jupiter and Semele (below; click to enlarge). Jupiter is, of course, Zeus; Semele is the mother of Dionysius.

Harvard Business Review Classics

Series design by Kelly Blair

Saw these slim volumes on a quick spin through Borders at the Orlando airport. There are 10 or so in all, I think, and it's a pretty cool series, especially for business books. See more here.

I'm especially fond (in a sort-of-twisted way) of Control In An Age of Empowerment. The book addresses exactly what you think it would: "...how to give employees the freedom to innovate while protecting your firm from loose cannons." But if that doesn't work: bosses, just sit on the offending employee until HR shows up :-) Seriously, though, these are fun and there's some good thinking behind the main images.

The Big Necessity

Design by Nick Caruso

There's a time to get out the Sharpies, and there's a time to fire up Photoshop. I would argue that this would have been a time to do the former. One of last year's favorite designs was successful precisely because the computer was left out of it.

Remember These Orwell Covers?

Penguin UK is selling signed and numbered A2-sized (approx 16.5 x 23.5 inches) screen prints of these Shepard Fairey-designed covers. There are only 200 of them, and they're sold as part of a set (with the books). Details are here. UPDATE: They're sold out.

Previous post and comments on these covers are here.

Jetpack Dreams

Design by Jon Resh

A week or so ago, Boing Boing featured a wonderful video for a new book about the history of jetpacks. Here's the cover.

Simple? Sure. Effective? Heck yeah. A really great example of basic design principles, well executed.


Buy this book from Amazon.com.

Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President

Design by Pete Garceau

Released just last week and staring at me this afternoon from the new non-fiction display. And so the list of books with no title on the cover grows.

(BTW, designer Garceau is responsible for the Rorschach-o-riffic The Political Brain.)

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, US and UK

Designer credits to come

UPDATE: Several readers have pointed out the series of books of which this is a part. Covers from the Massey Lecture series from 1961 to 2008 can be seen here. Thanks all!

Very different treatments of Margaret Atwood's "study of debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature, and the structure of human societies" (from the publisher's Web site). Clearly not a business book, so the UK edition (top) gets closer to what this cover should be.


The US edition (below) looks very much -- too much? -- like a business and finance title:

Obsession: A History

Design by Isaac Tobin
Lettering by Lauren Nassef

No photoshoppery here: according to Isaac's Web site: "Lettering by Lauren Nassef, using pinpricks through heavy cardstock."

Damn, this is fine. I've got nothing else.